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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

You have to take the good with the bad

The bad in this case was a kick in the guts. Today I read my first bad review of my book. This is perhaps the hardest part of writing - the potential for rejection and / or the criticism.

But I take the comments on board with a big frown on my face and manfully (womanfully?) move forward, but only after I've whinged a little bit first.

So in two and a half months I've had 5677 downloads of my book and 9 copies returned. Does that make it bad? Only 7 of those people have left a review on Amazon and 1 of those 7 was a bad review based on my punctuation. Are the rest not reviewing because it is bad, or they simply haven't finished reading it?

I have to plead the fifth here because I've downloaded at least 70 books since I got my Kindle in May and I've only left one review. Bad me, doing one thing and expecting something different from others.

Mind you, the bad ones I've never returned - .99 cents does not break the bank after all. Frankly I'm more fanatical about poor grammar or spelling. We each have our crosses to bare, but unless the storyline is totally and utterly shite I will continue reading.

Egads - should I even care? Of course this is me dissecting everything and trying to understand the why. As you can guess I'm not very good with criticism - not many people are I guess.

How do others deal with criticism?

Okay, I'm done whinging now. Only one and a half more days till Christmas break - not that I'm counting. Don't you hate how weeks go forever when you're counting down the days till something?

A large portion of my Christmas shopping is now done, curse the commercialism of Christmas. Give me good food, fun and laughter with friends and family and that's my kind of Christmas (and no restaurants for that good food either). I'm still adjusting to the idea of Christmas lunch at a restaurant this year.

I get the reasons why, but the cost and the formality of it all - not so much. I think one year real soon I might boycott Christmas and head off overseas.

There comes a time when you know enough is enough and that the only one who can make changes is yourself. Courage is another thing entirely. But it's coming, my break free moment can't be far away.

I'm off now to write some more poorly punctuated sentences - I'm laughing, really I am.

6 comments:

I'm sorry I haven't reviewed your book yet. I am one of the terrible people who have a load of books to read and haven't yet finished yours. I can say, however, that I haven't noticed a huge number of punctuation errors in what I have read. Is the reviewer, perhaps, having a hard time with the difference with the way we use English in the U.S.? I admit that once in awhile I have to think about what it is you are saying because some of our phrases are different.

I'm sorry someone left a bad review, but even the best authors have people who dislike their writing. I'm glad you are moving on from the review. Your quote at the bottom of your post says it all.

I know bad reviews are part and parcel, I guess I'm just a little bit surprised because while there's possibly a few punctuation problems, I've read some of the start of the other books that she's also reviewed and can see a few glaring problems there also - so who knows.

Hello lovely Fi -- ok. so true confessions. I have your book waiting on my iPad for reading during the holidays. And.... I think you might just have inspired me to write a review when I'm done. Honest. I will.

Reviews are always so subjective. i once had an article published and a woman commented that she felt sorry for me... and went on to tell me why.

Louise, It must my 'A' type personality shining through where I'm trying to please all of the people all of the time.

Even if a book was no good I would never leave such a pointed review - if it's good by heck yes, then I voice my pleasure and I'll be doing lots more reviews of those good ones to cancel out the bad taste left in my mouth by this woman.

Sorry about the bad review, but just keep in mind, you can't please everyone. How many people said Angels and Demons was a great book and all I could think was "Did we read the same book?" I get annoyed when people become grammar nazis. Like you, if the story is good, I can overlook grammar issues. Chin up, you got this.